Late last week, the Worldwatch Institute released a 2015 global status report for renewables, so today I’m going to share with you some of the points I found most interesting and relevant to our industry. If you download the full report, I’ll warn you, it is loaded with so many facts, figures and information, it’ll make your head spin.

Anyway, let’s start with jobs. One of the most commonly touted benefits of biomass energy is how many direct and indirect jobs that it creates, and this report reflects just that. For renewable energy in general, in 2014, an estimated 7.7 million people worldwide worked directly or indirectly in the sector. While solar supports the most at about 3.2 million jobs worldwide, bioenergy supports about 3 million. No other renewable technologies even come close—wind is the closest at about 1 million.

A good rule of thumb, according to the Biomass Power Association, is that a typical biomass power facility will provide two jobs for each megawatt of plant capacity (but of course, that’s different for other kinds of biomass-based energy). Here's a nifty jobs graphic, compliments of the Worldwatch Institute:

 

Moving along, the report illustrates what overall renewable generation looked like at the end of 2014. From 2013, there was 135 GW of added renewable energy power, increasing total installed capacity to 1,712 GW, up 8.5 percent from the year before.

New investment in renewable power and fuels (not including hydropower greater than 50 MW) increased 17 percent over 2013, to $270.2 billion. Investments soared in geothermal power (23 percent) and ocean energy (100 percent!), but they remain at very low levels. Other renewables, including biomass, didn’t do so well in new dollar investments: biofuels declined 8 percent to a 10-year low, and biomass and waste-to-energy dropped 10 percent. Though, they were the only sectors that saw decreased investments—small-scale hydropower dropped 17 percent.

The good news is that, according to the report, renewables outpaced fossil fuels for the fifth year running in terms of net investment in power capacity additions.

At the end of 2014, global renewable electricity generation comprised about 27.7 percent of the world’s power generating capacity, with hydropower leading by a landslide at 16.6 percent. Then there’s a massive dip to the rest—wind at 3.1, biopower at 1.8, and geothermal and the rest much lower than that. Surprisingly, the biopower global percentage is just a hair above what the U.S. EIA says is generated in the U.S.—about 1.9 percent of total electricity generated.

The report highlights the vast potential for increased renewable heating and cooling.  Half of the final energy consumption in 2014 went to provide heat for buildings and industry, with modern renewables—mostly biomass—generating about 8 percent of this share. Bioheat saw a 1 percent increase over 2013, and the report points out how different some countries’ bioheat porfolios are, from large-scale production in industry in the U.S., to a high number of residential-scale digesters in China.  

And here's another graphic demonstrating the breakdown of bioenergy sources for both electricity and heat:

Potential to increase renewable heat is huge, but, as the institute points out, policy support is lacking. That is, in most places.

On liquid biofuel production, it was up 9 percent in 2014, its highest level to date. And, although the U.S. and Brazil dominated overall volume, Asia had particularly high production rates, the report finds. Policy had both positive and negative impacts in different parts of the world, but uncertaintly in Europe, the U.S. and Australia had negative effects on industry (and, as I type this, a hearing on the U.S.’s federal renewable fuel standard is ongoing).

Low oil prices in the second half of the year had some positive effects, according to the report—particularly in feedstock production—but reduced turnover for some bioenergy businesses.

 With that, I’m going to sign off by what grabbed my attention the most, this crazy factoid:

Despite spectacular growth of renewable energy capacity in 2014, more than one billion people, or 15 percent of humanity, still lack access to electricity. Moreover, approximately 2.9 billion people lack access to clean forms of cooking. With installed capacity of roughly 147 GW, all of Africa has less power generation capacity than Germany.

Here’s demonstrating that visually (this is the reason that I’m not a graphic designer):

It goes without saying, but the potential of renewable electricity, heat and fuels is enormous.